The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

As highlighted in Tuesday's story on college basketball's best teams for the money, there is a clear correlation between spending money and winning basketball games. Generally speaking, the more money a team spends, the more likely it is that team will experience success on the court, particularly in the NCAA Tournament.

We decided to ride that trend to the extreme, and filled out our tournament bracket under the assumption that the the higher-spending team will win every game. To figure out which those were, we totaled each team's basketball spending over the last three seasons. Our picks can be found below.

It's important to note that the trend between spending and winning is somewhat skewed by the fact that teams that have made deep tournament runs need to spend more on things like travel, lodging and coach bonuses. In other words, sometimes winning leads to spending, not the other way around. But even that conflation can be justified because it seems reasonable to think that teams that have succeeded in recent tournaments are more likely to succeed this year as well.

And thanks to top-spending teams also doing well during the regular season, our model doesn't pick many upsets. In fact, it predicts just five upsets in the first round. Three of those appear in the South and West regions:

Of course, Pitt over Colorado or Oklahoma State over Gonzaga are hardly shocking picks, and Stanford over New Mexico only marginally more so. The South region is all chalk through the Sweet 16, where Syracuse and UCLA score the wins. Things are much more interesting on the other side, where Baylor runs through Creighton and Wisconsin, and Oklahoma St. upsets No. 1 Arizona (both are top-20 in terms of spending).

The remaining two first-round upset picks are both in the Midwest region and, in a surprising twist, both are from play-in games:

The two play-in teams expected to make the Round of 32 are NC State (check) and Iowa (plays Wednesday), though it's worth noting that their play-in opponents - Xavier and Tennessee, respectively - would also be expected to win their second-round games should they get there.

Though we picked just five first-round upsets, our model makes things much more interesting in the later rounds. We take No. 8 Memphis over No. 1 Virginia, No. 7 Texas over No. 2 Michigan and even have Connecticut eliminating both Villanova and North Carolina to make the Elite Eight.

Our Final Four picks are Duke, Michigan State, Syracuse and Oklahoma State. Despite none being a one- or two-seed, most of those seem reasonable enough. The glaring exception is No. 8 OSU. Only six teams have spent more than the Cowboys over the last three years, but they don't have a great track record for it: OSU made the tournament just once in that time and promptly lost its first game.

The championship game is between ACC rivals Duke and Syracuse. Duke is the sport's top spender, shelling out $45 million over the last three seasons, so the Blue Devils take the crown. Syracuse ranks fourth in basketball spending at $36 million. The Orange reach the title game because the top three spenders - Duke, Louisville ($44.5 million) and Kentucky ($41 million) - are all in the same so-called region of death. Even here No. 1 Wichita State isn't given much of a chance - the Shockers have spent just $14 million over the last three years.